After breakfast your driver-guide picks you up in a 4×4, and the road runs north along the Tupkaragan peninsula, about 122 km to Shakpak-Ata. This underground mosque, cut into a limestone slope above a dry valley, and the necropolis around it date from the 10th–13th centuries. Inside, the rooms are laid out in the shape of a cross, with light falling through openings in the rock. Nearby are the canyons of Shakpak-Ata-say and Kapamsay.

An hour or an hour and a half further, in the Torysh valley, the ground is scattered with stone balls, some 3–4 metres across. They are concretions: rock that hardened in layers around a core on the floor of an ancient sea and was later washed out of the softer stone.

In the afternoon, Sherkala, a lone mesa whose name means “lion fortress”, and the Airakty-Shomanay range, called the Valley of Castles for its weathered towers and walls. Your guide stops at the viewpoints for photographs as the light drops.

In the evening you reach the Kogez ethno-village, with a hot dinner and a night in a yurt.

Overnight in a yurt at the Kogez ethno-village

Breakfast at the village, then south to Tuzbair. Here the white chalk cliffs of the Ustyurt plateau drop to a dry salt lake, a sor; you can walk out over the salt crust and see the natural arch in the cliff.

From the edge of the plateau the view opens onto a whole archipelago of outlying hills and cliffs, the shoreline of a sea that left this land millions of years ago.

In the afternoon the 4×4 drives on to the Bozzhyra valley. Dinner is cooked at the camp, and the night is spent in a tent under a sky with almost no city light.

Good to know: The salt flat is only crossed when it is dry; after rain your guide picks another route.

Overnight in a tent at Bozzhyra

In the morning you see Bozzhyra properly: from the middle plateau, then from the Dreadnought ledge, the best viewpoint over the valley and its white pinnacles. In the rock you can find the spirals of ammonites, marine fossils; take photographs, and leave the fossils where they lie.

Then Mount Bokty, whose slopes are striped red by layers of chalk, and the Kyzylkup hills, which locals call “tiramisu” for their bands of white, pink and ochre.

Dinner and a second night in a tent on the plateau.

Good to know: The viewpoints are on bare rock without railings, and the wind can be strong: closed shoes help.

Overnight in a tent on the plateau

After breakfast the road leaves the plateau through the Senek sands, a belt of dunes on the way back towards the Caspian.

In the afternoon, the Karagiye depression: about 40 km long, with its lowest point 132 m below sea level, the lowest place in Kazakhstan. Your guide takes you to the edges from which you see its full depth and width.

In the evening you are back in Aktau, with dinner at a local café and a night in the hotel.

Overnight in Aktau

A slow morning, then Aktau with your guide. The city is young and built right on the Caspian shore, on a coast of pale limestone cliffs. Its best-known landmark is a lighthouse on the roof of an apartment block, seen best from the waterfront.

You finish with a walk along the seaside promenade. In the evening, the transfer to the airport and the flight to Almaty; your driver meets you there and takes you to your hotel.

Good to know: If the only flight that day leaves earlier, the city tour is shorter: we confirm it when we book the flights.

Overnight in Almaty

In the morning, the Nomad ethno centre, a complex built around Kazakh nomadic life. Inside a yurt your guide shows how a family lived and moved; there are old weapons, armour and household things to look at. Then the horsemen: kokpar, jigitovka and other horseback games, and a show with a falconer and his golden eagle. If you wish, you can ride a horse and try traditional archery. Lunch is at the centre.

In the afternoon, the centre of Almaty on foot, with the Zailiysky Alatau mountains above the city on a clear day. The walk starts in Panfilov Park, one of the oldest parks in the city, where you see the wooden cathedral of 1907 by the architect Andrei Zenkov from outside, and continues along Panfilov Street to the Green Bazaar, with dried fruit, nuts, cheeses and the everyday bustle of the city.

Overnight in Almaty